Tag Archives: Evolution

Evidence of the role of extraterrestrial viruses in affecting terrestrial evolution has recently been plausibly implied in the gene and transcriptomesequencing of Cephalopods. The genome of the Octopus shows a staggering level of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes more than is present in Homo sapiens (Albertin et al., 2015). Octopus belongs to the coleoid sub-class of molluscs (Cephalopods) that have an evolutionary history that stretches back over 500 million years, although Cephalopod phylogenetics is highly inconsistent and confusing (see Carlini et al., 2000; Strugnell et al., 2005, 2006, 2007; Bergmann et al., 2006). Cephalopods are also very diverse, with the behaviourally complex coleoids, (Squid, Cuttlefish and Octopus) presumably arising under a pure terrestrial evolutionary model from the more primitive nautiloids. However the genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great, akin to the extreme features seen across many genera and species noted in Eldridge-Gould punctuated equilibria patterns (below). Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch colour and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene. The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral Nautilus (e.g. Nautilus pompilius) to the common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) to Squid (Loligo vulgaris) to the common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris, Fig. 5) are not easily to be found in any pre-existing life form – it is plausible then to suggest they seem to be borrowed from a far distant “future” in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large. Such an extraterrestrial origin as an explanation of emergence of course runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.

But Kanazawa and Li’s savanna theory of happiness offers a different explanation. The idea starts with the premise that the human brain evolved to meet the demands of our ancestral environment on the African savanna, where the population density was akin to what you’d find today in, say, rural Alaska (less than one person per square kilometer). Take a brain evolved for that environment, plop it into today’s Manhattan (population density: 27,685 people per square kilometer), and you can see how you’d get some evolutionary friction.

Similarly with friendship: “Our ancestors lived as hunter–gatherers in small bands of about 150 individuals,” Kanazawa and Li explain. “In such settings, having frequent contact with lifelong friends and allies was likely necessary for survival and reproduction for both sexes.” We remain social creatures today, a reflection of that early reliance on tight-knit social groups.

The typical human life has changed rapidly since then — back on the savanna we didn’t have cars or iPhones or processed food or “Celebrity Apprentice” — and it’s quite possible that our biology hasn’t been able to evolve fast enough to keep up. As such, there may be a “mismatch” between what our brains and bodies are designed for, and the world most of us live in now.

On the one hand it’s extremely well organized, but on the other hand the sheer scale of all of this unfamiliar well-organized stuff that happens in there makes me feel that I’ve stumbled onto an alternate landscape of technology that’s built by an engineer a million times smarter than me. The more that I search for principles beyond the ones we’ve already learned, the more I am overwhelmed with the feeling that this stuff was built by aliens.

How we think about the past often tells us more about present that it does about history. For example, Greek mythology spoke of a past “golden age”:

(ll. 109-120) First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven. And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.

Hesiod Works and Days. Yet we wiser moderns know that history goes in one direction; that the past was primitive, but due to the power of progress, things have constantly become better. We are wiser, better, stronger than our ancestors. Such thinking owes more to people like Herbert Spencer. The Wikipedia summarizes Spencer as follows:

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was “an enthusiastic exponent of evolution” and even “wrote about evolution before Darwin did.”[1] As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. “The only other English philosopher to have achieved anything like such widespread popularity was Bertrand Russell, and that was in the 20th century.”[2] Spencer was “the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century”[3][4]

Yet, a Stanford professor of genetics recently held that our Greek ancestors (or any of our ancestors from the time of Hesiod) would be more intellectually powerful than Spencer (who thought himself at the top of the progressive heap):

I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions. We would be surprised by our time-visitor’s memory, broad range of ideas and clear-sighted view of important issues. I would also guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I do not mean to imply something special about this time in history or the location, but would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago. I mean to say simply that we Homo sapiens may have changed as a species in the past several thousand years and will use 3000 years to emphasize the potential rapidity of change and to provide a basis for calculations, although dates between 2,000 and 6,000 years ago might suffice equally well. The argument that I will make is that new developments in genetics, anthropology and neurobiology make a clear prediction about our historical past as a species and our possible intellectual fate. The message is simple: our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprising fragile.

One way in which consider ourselves to be advanced is in matters of “race”. Now “race” is a nonsense concept. There is only one “race”, the human race. Of course human beings have organized ourselves into various groups which use common language and culture; but that is a cultural club, not a “race”. Anyway, we pride ourselves in outgrowing notions of race – which make us much better people than our forbearers.

Yet, racism is far more “modern” than we might admit. An incident in 1857 at least points in the opposite direction:

A watershed point in this history occurred in 1857 when the General Assembly of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) received from some white members a request for permission to celebrate the Lord’s Supper separated from black members of the church. The request was clearly against the Reformed polity of the DRC ….(Indeed, an earlier request for separate communion had been rejected by the Dutch Reformed Church, for the Lord’s Supper was to be administered “without distinction of colour”). Moreover, the 1857 Synod found no biblical grouns for the separation of communion based upon race. However, the assembly, wanting to avoid being conservative, doctrinaire, and rigid gave pastoral accommodation that “due to the weakness of some,” communion and worship could be organized into separate celebrations based on race. (The “weaker” one referred to were the white members who made the request for separate communion.)

Fortunately, in many places – particularly within the Christian church – such modern racism has been rejected: but, not on the basis of “progress” but rather to conform to what the church already believed and held and practiced. If nothing else, this story cautions us to be more careful of what we “know to be true.”

I was reading James A Shapiro’s textbook Evolution, which informed me that neo-Darwinian mutation and natural selection didn’t cut it and must be replaced with the principle that, “the capacity to change is itself adapative….The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable. Our current ideas about evolution have to incorporate this basic fact of life.”

Now, I know that he is not denying evolution (change over time, including change from species to species) takes place. However, he is denying the most common proposed fundamental explanation of the mechanism for such change. Thus, those who argued previously that the proposed mechanism must be correct are wrong — and those maligned as unscientific who said the mechanism wouldn’t work must be right.

That remind me of an argument by Carl F. Henry on the relationship between between Genesis and science. He essentially argued that a reconciliation can hardly take place until the positions are fixed and immovable. Thus, someone who sought to reconcile Genesis with the neo-Darwinian synthesis would — according to Shapiro — be unscientific and sadly mistaken. Yet, those who argued against it have been vindicated (if you will) by Shapiro.

I have seen those who already assail Shapiro for his seemingly strange postulation of some sort of life force which causes change. I would not be surprised if Shapiro is rejected for some new position (assuming he becomes a dominant position in the near term). And thus, the Christian theist must be slow to seek to reconcile a position to something which will be different in the near future:

We are not therefore abandoned to a choice between myths, however. An intelligible and intelligent faith asks which postulate most comprehensively fits the data and bequeaths the fewest problems. Both creationists and evolutionists must state the nature of their claims precisely and indicate logical supports for those claims. Christian theists can hardly be expected to harmonize the Genesis account with modern scientific theory at points of possible conflict unless they are told exactly what evolutionary premises its advocates consider beyond revision. If the fossil record gives no evidence of an upward evolution of all life during prehistory, and if no current illustrations of present evolution are or can be adduced, then on what factual basis are we to believe in evolution?